"Brighton, 1950. The body of a girl is found cut into three pieces. Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens is convinced the killer is mimicking a famous magic trick--the Zig Zag Girl. The inventor of the trick, Max Mephisto, is an old war friend of Edgar's. They served together in a shadowy unit called the Magic Men, a special ops troop that used stage tricks to confound the enemy. Max is on the traveling show circuit, touring seaside towns with ventriloquists,...

The Amazing Arden is the most famous female illusionist of her day, renowned for her notorious trick of sawing a man in half on stage. One night in Waterloo, Iowa, with young policeman Virgil Holt watching from the audience, she swaps her trademark saw for a fire ax. Is it a new version of the illusion, or an all-too-real murder? When Arden's husband is found lifeless beneath the stage later that night, the answer seems clear. But when Virgil happens...

"In the sequel to the "captivating"* Zig Zag Girl, DI Edgar Stephens and the magician Max Mephisto hunt for a killer after two children are murdered in a tragic tableau of a very grim fairy tale. *Wall Street Journal It's Christmastime in Brighton, and the city is abuzz about a local production of Aladdin, starring the marvelous Max Mephisto. But the holiday cheer is lost on DI Edgar Stephens. He's investigating the murder of two children, Annie and...

"An epic fantasy about the struggle for mastery in a world ruled by magic"--Back of jacket.

Seventeen-year-old Lia Sawyer teams up with Beckett--one of the charming Blackwell boys, the latest generation of a rival magic family--to win a stage magic contest and out-con the bad guys. Lia Sawyer's grandmother wants her to compete in a stage magic contest, even though her parents object. She will be judged by a bunch of old-school magicians who think that because she's a girl her only magical talents lie in wearing sparkly dresses, providing...

"A Restless Truth is the second entry in Freya Marske's beloved, award-winning Last Binding trilogy, the queer historical fantasy series that began with A Marvellous Light. Maud Blyth has always longed for adventure. She expected plenty of it when she volunteered to serve as an old lady's companion on an ocean liner, in order to help her beloved older brother unravel a magical conspiracy that began generations ago. What she didn't expect was for the...

"A sweeping tale of revolution and wonder in a world not quite like our own. It is the Age of Enlightenment -- of new and magical political movements, from the necromancer Robespierre calling for revolution in France to the weather mage Toussaint L'Ouverture leading the slaves of Haiti in their fight for freedom, to the bold new Prime Minister William Pitt weighing the legalization of magic amongst commoners in Britain and abolition throughout its...

Londons fall and kingdoms rise while darkness sweeps the Maresh Empire, and the fraught balance of magic blossoms into dangerous territory while heroes struggle. The trilogy's conclusion concerns the fate of beloved protagonists -- and old foes.

"In a nail-biting hunt for a missing loved one, DI Edgar Stephens and the magician Max Mephisto discover once again that the line between art, life, and death is all too easily blurred"--

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life'-Samuel Johnson. In fact Dr Johnson was only half right. There is in London much more than life-there is power. Enter a London where magicians ride the Last Train, implore favours of The Beggar Kind and interpret the insane wisdom of The Bag Lady.